


The Pull to the Light

by HarpiaHarpyja



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blood, Blow Jobs, But Blood Just the Same, But It Might Be Sexy, But She Won’t Say No to a Good Chocolate Cake, Cunnilingus, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Dark fic, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Deep Eel Throating, Deep Sea Dicking, Dream Sex, Dubious Consent, Empath Kylo Ren, F/M, Fish Puns, Free Willy But the Guy Falls in Love With the Whale and It Eats Him, Horror, Human/Monster Romance, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Romance, It's Fish Blood, Kylo Jizzed in His Pants, Kylo You Are Not In Charge, Masturbation, Mermaids for Kate Bush, Mind Meld, Oral Sex, POV Kylo Ren, References to Canon, Rey Is Hungry, Rey Likes It Raw, Rey Takes Her Meals to Go, Sea Monsters, She is Just Eating Them, Smut, Specifically for Man Meat, Telepathic Bond, Telepathy, The First Order Is Into Some Shady Shit, The Motion of the Ocean, The shape of water but with a sexier fish person, To Kylo, Unhappy Ending (From a Certain Point of View), Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Wet Dream, mermaid rey, no really, slippery when wet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 10:02:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16447733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarpiaHarpyja/pseuds/HarpiaHarpyja
Summary: In a world not so different from our own, a notorious research facility known as the First Order captures, detains, and studies monsters from around the globe. Rising in their ranks is Kylo Ren, a powerful telepathic empath who extracts useful secrets from subjects—the most recent of which is an unusual mermaid dubbed the Niima Siren. But things go awry when she turns his power back on him and the two form a most unconventional bond … with surprising results, not the least of which is her seemingly endlessappetites.As William Shakespeare famously proclaimed, the course of carnivorous mermaid mating habits never did run smooth.





	1. .lights.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello. This fic was written for Reylo Monster Week 2018 on Tumblr. The prompt for Day 5 is Sea Creatures.
> 
> This fic contains some dark elements (and some humor, I swear!).
> 
> \- Instances of dubcon are of the impaired consent and power imbalance variety. I guess the best analog for the impaired consent aspect would be sex pollen: Rey's effect on Kylo's mind is an instinctive reflex for her but nevertheless influences his decision making. Kylo is positioned as a high-ranking employee of the organization holding Rey in captivity.  
> \- All scenes of a sexual nature are confined to dream sequences and are not traumatic for either party.  
> \- There is a major character death implied but not graphically referenced.  
> \- If descriptions of eating raw meat (fish, she's a carnivore!) are difficult for you, there are a few scenes where you may wish to tread carefully.  
> \- There's also a lot of talk of/complaints about a chum bucket early on, so, same warning. Chum and blood are gross.
> 
> Finally, this fic took some inspiration from the films The Shape of Water, Raw, and The Lure/Córki Dancingu, and too many readings of Angela Carter’s _The Bloody Chamber_ , but was most heavily inspired by recent horrifying/pretty awesome discoveries about the mating habits of the [fanfin seadevil angler fish](https://www.futurity.org/fanfin-seadevil-fish-1713022-2/). 
> 
> So if you like that stuff, you may enjoy this. If you don't, you might not. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An introduction. In which Kylo gets a new subject, and she is not what he expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to leoba and inmyownidiom for beta reading this and having as much fun with it as I did. <3

It’s the lights, at first, that catch Kylo’s eye. Distant, flickering in the otherwise pitchy blue-black of the water, colors shifting so gradually he almost doesn’t notice. They make him think of jewels stranded on a necklace. What a needlessly poetic way to think about it—he hasn’t thought that way in years—but so right. The lights.

 _Her lights_.

The Order brought her in last week; found her stripping old shipwrecks in the abyssal plains bordering the Jakku Trench in the northern Atlantic. She put up a fight, but the good catches always do. They call her the Niima Siren, after the ship she was looting, though from what he’s heard, she’s really more of some deep-sea mermaid. Of course, that’s hearsay. He hasn’t seen her until now, through nearly a foot of glass.

He wants to wait for her to come nearer, but she doesn’t. She’s just a string of lights, drifting somewhere in the tank.

He forces himself to remove his palm from where he has pressed it to the glass without realizing. He steps back, walks to the end of the corridor, takes the lift to the viewing level. The room is dimly lit, but not the fathomless void of the deep ocean, and the silence is disturbed only by the faint lapping of water at the edge of the tank. 

The Siren has proven marvelously adaptive. There was concern she might not survive conditions so different from her own—she was found in a world of pressure, cold, and dark, an environment they can only emulate by degrees. But, so far, she has thrived. Enough that Kylo has been assigned to Read her. That’s the sign they mean to keep her rather than just dispose of her. He’d like to say that means she’s one of the lucky ones, but what awaits her might make death preferable, and who ever heard of a lucky monster?

He mindlessly runs through his usual routine: reinforced coveralls and mask to protect against bites and scratches; a harness attached to the wall by a series of steel carabiners, in case she tries to pull him in; the chum bucket. He hates the metallic, sour, oily smell of it and the way the contents slosh around, cold and slimy. Grimacing, he reaches in and takes a handful, grateful for his gloves, and throws it into the water. He sneers as the chunks of fish parts plop and disappear.

She’s there within seconds. First it’s the lights again, trailing the arrow-shaped ripples on the water like the tail of a comet, and then a head breaks the surface. She looks human, at least from the shoulders up. Mostly. The dark hair, the angular face— _pretty_ face, he can’t help noticing—the intelligence in her eyes.

He likes that. The sentient ones are always a more interesting Read than the beasts he often sees brought in. It's taken years to deaden himself to their fear and anger and despair to focus only on the challenge of it. But it’s a job. His job. He has to eat, after all.

As she rises more, wiping the remains of her meal from her face with the back of a hand, the fact that she is _not_ human is impossible to ignore or excuse. Her shoulders and chest are that of a young woman, but her pearly, pale skin reflects the blue light of his lantern in a way that no human’s would. She’s sinewy and narrow-waisted, which is where the scales begin. She emerges only enough that he can see where the hips on an ordinary human being might be, but he can imagine the rest of her, based on this and the charts he’s memorized. 

Nearly two and a half meters long from the top of her head to the tip of her fluked tail, spiny dorsal protrusions along her back, several dozen bioluminescent filaments unfurling like whips from her shoulders and downward to midfin—the lights he’d seen earlier. They’re less striking above the water, but still mesmerizing. 

“Can you see me?” he asks her, expecting a response in no language he knows. He’ll know well enough in a few moments, but he’s curious about how she regards him _now_.

She tilts her head, studies him out of the corner of her narrowed eyes, sinks back a little until she is visible only from the shoulders up. 

“Good,” he says. His voice is slightly warped through the mouthpiece of his mask as he prepares to launch into the spiel he saves for the sapient monsters. A more cynical person, the protesters who like to call _him_ the monster (and maybe he is), would say it’s a pretense of putting such creatures at ease. But there’s still a part of him that does care enough to bother with politeness when it matters. 

On second thought . . . 

Against his better judgment, he takes off the mask. She won’t hurt him. He can tell. 

“You may feel strange. Dazed. Don’t be afraid,” he continues, his composure well practiced. She’s not—afraid. He already feels that, even before he begins. “This is routine. I’m good at what I do. It won’t hurt, but it will go more quickly if you cooperate.”

He gets down on one knee, hand resting on the other bent in front of him, lets his mind still and his focus soften on a point at the center of her forehead. As he reaches out with his gift he can feel her still looking back at him. Good, the trance is normal, the connection solid. He begins to get a flicker of her thoughts, her feelings, her general state of being. 

She’s not just sapient; she is _very intelligent_. Possibly more than anything they have in their records. She is the only one of her kind. She isn’t sure what became of the rest of her kin. She’s bored, unhappy with the confines of the facility, annoyed at the lack of stimulation, and she’s— 

Kylo shudders, and his concentration does the same. He feels the link between them . . . wobble, like a single great wave on a once-steady surface. His eyes open fully and he sees her. She’s risen out again, she’s come to the edge of the platform, and there’s something above her head. One of the shining bright filaments, but much shorter than the others, thicker, more like a rod that rises from the base of her neck to arch above her head and hover in front of her forehead.

Right where he’s been staring. And suddenly he finds he can’t move. Or, he _can_ , but he doesn’t really want to. He’s content to sit here and stare at that light. It’s beautiful. It makes him feel warm, and safe. He doesn’t notice when the rest of her filaments, thirty-six thread-thin whips, each tipped with its own point of twinkling blue, rise out of the water and converge to touch his head. 

They palpate and settle around his temples, over his forehead; some even caress his jaw, and they feel like little drops of cool spring rain as they tap into _his_ thoughts, _his_ feelings, _his_ state of being, and absorb. It’s nearly half a minute before he returns to himself and realizes what’s happening— _What the_ fuck _is happening?_ —and thrashes away, breaks his mental connection to her, and scrambles ungracefully back across the platform until he hits the wall. It knocks the wind out of him.

The mask. The fucking mask. He should have left it on, that’s what it’s _for_ , to _protect him_ from getting . . . whatever has just happened between him and the Siren. Whatever she did to him. He feels— 

“Don’t be afraid.” 

Across the platform, she speaks in perfect English, her voice low and warm but . . . yes, there’s a hint of mocking. He hears it. He _feels_ it. 

Oh goddamnit. He’s just been staring at her like an idiot, but she’s pulled herself up onto the platform now. She’s sitting at the edge, watching him with those sharp eyes, all her lights arrayed around her like a skirt (except that weird stalky one over her head—it’s gone, retracted, he has no idea if it was even there at all), her long tail still half submerged and almost ridiculous looking. A little unsightly. So unlike the rest of her. He catches himself staring and shakes his head.

“You can speak?”

“Yes I can speak.” Now she just sounds dismissive. She’s leaning to peer into the chum bucket he’s left behind. He’s glad he didn’t knock it over in his mad scramble away—just what he’d need, to be sliding backward on his ass through blood and fish guts. “And I’m hungry. Is there anything to eat?”

“In there . . .” He gestures vaguely at the bucket and begins to compose himself, sits up straighter, gets to his feet.

Her nose wrinkles, and she picks up a fish head. Its glassy disc of an eye looks at him dejectedly. “No, not this. This is garbage. I’m not a shark. Do you have anything good?” 

She looks up at him and eats the fish head anyway, chewing slowly, and the way her gaze settles on him is . . . different. There’s interest, _intense_ interest, and he sees her scan him from head to toe, then back up, and take in a little breath. Heat flushes up Kylo’s neck, down his limbs, settles at the pit of his belly. He swallows.

“Like what?” He is relieved to find he sounds collected, more like himself, cooler, more distant. Professional. This is his _job_. He’s just never encountered anything like this before, anything like _her_ . . .

The Siren’s face screws up, an exaggeration of deep thought. “Chocolate cake?”

Her answer surprises him. Not because of the odd specificity, or because she would have no way of knowing what chocolate cake is, but because it’s the last thing _he_ ate before coming down here to get to work on her. The facility cafeteria churns out a lot of shitty excuses for food, but their chocolate cake is, bizarrely, the best on the island, even better than the ones from those fancy small-batch bakeries in the mainland cities. 

“You want chocolate cake?” he asks, half certain he’s misheard. He still feels so strange. He can almost hear himself saying it, as he has to her and so many others: ‘ _You may feel strange. Dazed._ ’ His temples throb with the beginning of a headache.

“Yes. Chocolate cake. Will you bring me some?”

“No.” He shakes his head again and shrugs, more to loosen his shoulders than out of uncertainty. “What’s—what are you called?” 

He was so close to getting there, in her head, close to the more personal information—her abilities, her physiology, her weaknesses, her needs—but she did that _thing_ to him and beat him out. Wary, he eyes her filaments, but they’re limp and lifeless, glowing harmlessly.

“A name?” She seems annoyed and combs a hand through her hair. “I’m called Rey.”

He might have found that funny—she’s really more an angler than a ray, to go by appearances—but she dips her finger into the bucket and swipes it over the platform floor, forming three neat letters, R-E-Y, in blood on the gray linoleum.

“Rey.” He repeats it quietly, to himself, but she hears him somehow. 

“Yes.” She slides closer, surprisingly agile out of the water, her fluked tail lifting in a neat arch. Her scales are dark brown, mottled with the color of sand. “And you’re Ben.”

His stomach clenches, and so does his jaw, and his eyes harden. No one’s called him that in years. He gave that name up when he started with the Order. Not everyone does, but he has. She can’t possibly know that; but she does.

“We’re done here. I’ll return tomorrow to complete the Reading. Get back in the tank. Or don’t. I don’t care.” 

He turns and unhitches the harness and marches back to the lift, expecting her to attack, almost wanting her to. But she doesn’t. He doesn’t know what she does, because seconds later he’s in and the doors slide shut behind him and he’s away.


	2. .emissions.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kylo has an exciting dream.

He dreams about the Siren— _Rey_ —that night, after he gets home to his Order-financed apartment at nearly one in the morning and collapses into bed. He doesn’t even bother to change beyond tossing his trousers into the laundry pile, even though he’s positive his clothing stinks of the facility and the goddamn chum bucket. 

It’s just her face at first. She looks different than she did at the facility. He realizes it’s because she’s dry. She’s not in the water at all. Her hair falls past her shoulders in sleek brown waves. Her skin is still dewy, but so, so touchable. She has freckles on her cheeks and nose. Her lips are full and pink and curved in a smile. She’s naked, standing there at the foot of his bed, fully, completely human. No muscular mermaid’s tail, no scales, no spines or filaments or lights. Just smooth, pearly skin and a beautiful body.

She’s leaning over him. Straddling him between two lean thighs. Pinning him with two strong arms. Her fingers press hard into the stretch of muscle between his neck and shoulders. Her face dips and her mouth parts an inch from his and she kisses him. She tastes like blood and chocolate. He’s a hot vibration of nerves, he takes her face in his hands, he doesn’t want her to stop.

_Ben_ . . .

She’s on her back, cradled in seafoam sheets, legs spread. His face is buried between her thighs. He hears her moan, a wavering thrum of ocean song, feels her breath catch under his hand at her breast. Her nails scrape his scalp as she twists her hand in his hair. She’s dripping. She’s soaked. And Kylo, he’s— 

Awake. 

“ _Fuck_ , Rey—”

For a few moments Kylo is convinced his face is wet. He palms it. Nothing. Not sweat. Not _her_. 

Another handful of moments pass before he realizes he’s a mess after all—there’s hot fucking _cum_ slicking his boxers. What is he, thirteen? He waits until his cock isn’t hard anymore, then gets up and throws his shorts and shirt off and goes to clean himself up, dazed by the dream, annoyed that waking as he did robbed him of the sensation of orgasming, more annoyed that he did so at all. When he’s done he doesn’t bother to find clean clothes. He just throws himself back into bed and wills his mind to cool it on the dreams. It’s four AM. He’s expected back at the facility in a few hours.


	3. .cake.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kylo comes bearing treats, and Rey considers an exchange.

That morning he requests permission to extend his sessions with the Niima Siren. He doesn’t tell Administrator Snoke exactly why. He doesn’t tell him about the way she got in his head. Instead, he tells him that what he Read was not adequate. And that’s true. He tells him there’s more they can learn about Rey, from Rey. She’s unique. So like a human. So intelligent. Possibly very strong. He’d like another week. The administrator is suspicious, but grants his request, though it feels as much like a warning as an allowance.

_Don't fuck this up, Ren_.

Later, he’s in line in the dining hall, waiting for the low-level drones in front of him to move along, and he dips into their minds unnoticed. Their thoughts fail to interest him. All the usual shit: families and friends and social engagements and other things he doesn't have. Things he doesn't need. He glances at the dessert tray. 

Jello. Fruit tart. Pecan pie. 

Chocolate cake. 

He reaches for one slice. Then another, packed into a styrofoam container. To go. 

At ten o’clock, just like last night, he takes the lift to the viewing level after watching a few minutes from behind the aquarium glass. No lights tonight. He wonders vaguely if she’s okay, and feels like a complete idiot, tablet in one hand, take-away cake in the other. His job is to learn all there is to know about her, report it, then leave her to the rest of the research department to do with as they will. Not deliver treats at her request.

But when he emerges onto the platform, no mask again ( _And why not? He knows what happened the last time. Why doesn’t he care?_ ), suited up, ready to work, she’s waiting. She’s propped up by the edge, chin resting on her folded arms, biting her lip. When she notices him she stops, but he’s already seen it—how sharp her teeth are. Not so much larger than a human’s, but pointy and translucent. 

Carnivorous. But he knew that already. Which makes her request even stranger.

“How did you know what this is?” He’s walked boldly up to the edge and stopped just a foot or so away from her without pausing to harness himself in place. ( _Another idiot move. Hasn’t he learned?_ ) He wants to show her he isn’t afraid of her. He’s in charge. He has a job to do, and she’s it. “Chocolate cake?”

Rey tips her head back and sniffs the air, as if to confirm that he’s retrieved the right thing. “It was in your head. You were thinking of it. You smelled like it, too.”

Kylo breathes out evenly and tries not to let his face show how much this alarms him. He knew, on some level, already. But hearing her say it with such nonchalance makes him feel . . . not uncomfortable. Almost fascinated. She got that and probably so much else from his head. Including, maybe, what the facility looks like. How to get out.

“You like it,” she goes on, heaving herself out of the water to sit at the edge, as if she does this all the time and they’re old friends. “I want to try it. It must be better than a bucket of dead fish. It smells delicious.”

He eyes the bucket. It’s been moved to the other end of the platform—by her, he assumes—and it’s been wiped completely clean. Licked clean, most likely. He thinks of her licking it out after he left last night, and how she says he smelled of chocolate cake, and how she says chocolate cake smells delicious. He feels a stirring and clears his throat. 

“I thought you didn’t like that.” He gestures roughly at the bucket. “Chum. You called it garbage.”

“It is. It’s dead, and it isn’t fresh. Even the name is disgusting. _Chum_.” She spits the last word, face bitter; but then she sounds almost defensive. “But I told you, I’m hungry. Get hungry enough and you’ll eat anything.”

She does it again, looks at him just as she did the night before. Her eyes travel over him, slower this time, touching the way her lights did. He wonders if she knows what he dreamt of last night. If she knows he dreamt of tasting her. He can sense her curiosity as he reaches into her mind just enough to lurk at the edges. That’s all he allows himself. He doesn’t want to open that door again—was it ever closed?

“Well, this cake is fresh, but it was never alive. So if that’s your complaint, you aren’t going to—”

In a flash she’s up, nearly his height, balanced on her tail just long enough to snatch the styrofoam box away before she recedes. _Excellent reflexes_. He watches as she opens the box, shockingly dainty, picks up a fingerful of cake and icing, and spoons it into her mouth. A greedy swipe of her tongue over her fingers, a pleased humming sound, and then she forgoes fingers altogether and tips the box against her mouth for another bite.

“This is good,” she says through a mouthful of the stuff. Crumbs fly, and she thumbs a smear of icing from her cheek, but not before Kylo forms the thought that he would like to lick it off. “Junk, though. Right?”

He catches on quick enough. “Yes. It’s . . . junk food. Dessert. You need meat. I assume.”

“Yes.” She eyes him and looks satisfied, and graces him with a smile. Those teeth. “Will you bring me that tomorrow? Fresh?”

“If you cooperate tonight.” He is about to tell her he wishes to finish Reading her, but he’s not sure of that. If he does so, he is certain she’ll do the same to him again. Stun him, or whatever she did, latch into him, absorb more of his thoughts and knowledge. More of _him_. So instead, he makes a decision. “I would like you to tell me about yourself.”

She considers it, calculating the weight of the exchange. “What would you like to know?”

“Everything.”


	4. .lick.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kylo has another dream, and needs to take matters into his own hands.

Kylo should have known better than to expect the dreams to stop. Of course they don’t. Not after he sat there with her for hours, listening to her speak about herself, writing it all down, pretending the only investment he had in it was as an agent of the Order, until his eyes grew heavy and he realized how late it had become. 

He’s being a complete idiot, and he knows it, and for some reason it just doesn’t stop him.

Rey is in his bed again. He’s irritated by his own lack of creativity when it comes to scenery, or at least he tries to be. It’s difficult to be irritated when there’s an inhumanly gorgeous woman crawling over his sheets, pulling him out of his clothes until he’s as naked as she is, kissing his lips swollen, running her long hands through his hair, over his chest, pressing herself to him, coaxing him back, whispering in his ear words he forgets the moment he hears them. 

She’s touching him all over, like she has more than just two hands, her fingers as cool as the lights were when they touched his face that first time, when he made that _mistake_. How could that have been a mistake when . . . 

Rey drags her mouth down his abdomen, and he feels her tongue swirl over his navel and lets out a groan, tensing and relaxing an instant later. It feels wonderful; it feels repulsive. For a moment, when she licks him again, letting her tongue trail down along the V at his hips, her lips pressing little sucking kisses, he thinks how her tongue is so wet and weirdly cold, like the dead fish in the bucket, and he almost recoils, but then the thought is gone. 

Her tongue is warm. Her tongue is soft.

Her tongue is tracing the length of his cock, teasing along a vein. He’s so fucking hard; he wasn’t ever _not_ hard, not since this dream began. His breath catches and he looks down at her where she’s crouched over his thighs, circling the fingers of one hand over his hip as she draws the other along his shaft, her grip loose. Exploratory. She dips her head and touches her tongue to the tip, a gentle hand sliding lower to caress his balls, wraps her lips around him until he hisses back a barely suppressed groan— _god she’s fucking electric, she’s lightning, she’s magic, she’s barely touched him_ —then releases and settles back a bit to watch him. Her blunt nails scratch lightly down his thighs.

He remembers her teeth and wonders, for a moment, if this is about to become a nightmare. But she smiles, and bites her lip, and her teeth are perfectly ordinary. Perfectly perfect, white, pearly. Like someone in a toothpaste ad. Importantly: human.

“A taste?”

“Please . . .” he manages. She must know how much he needs this. Needs her. 

Maybe that reaction was all she wanted. She’s already returning, lapping the faint sheen of precum and her own saliva away, enclosing him again. He sinks into her. She’s fathomless. He brushes the back of her throat, and he cries out, and he swears there’s a little quirk at the edge of her lips, a sly smile. Still she draws him further in, so warm, so wet, tongue tickling, lips pressing, endless— 

Kylo gasps and wakes. He’s not quite in the state he was the night before. But he’s erect and feels like he’s about to explode with need and desire and everything that’s unfulfilled and she’s _not there_. He’s alone. He grits his teeth and growls into his pillow. He isn’t weak. This is necessary.

He rolls onto his back and shoves his sheets aside and tugs his boxers down. He licks his palm a few times, spits into it, and gets to work on himself. It won’t take long, he can tell that much. He’s so wound up, a _look_ could probably do it right now. And he won’t let himself picture Rey, or even think of her at all. He doesn’t deserve that. _She_ doesn’t deserve that. He climaxes barely a minute later, and he’s a mess and he’s unsatisfied and it’s another four AM trip to the bathroom, but at least now he thinks he’ll be able to sleep undisturbed.


	5. .meat.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kylo makes a shopping trip, and Rey reveals some surprises.

He’s late to work that morning because he needs to stop at the fish market when it opens at eight. The only things holding him together when he gets there are the briskness of the early-autumn air and the cup of coffee in his hand as he peruses that morning’s fresh catches. There’s a lot to see, and none of it is cheap. He’s not sure how much he should buy. In the end he leaves with tuna, salmon, and swordfish, a pound of each, glistening cuts in pink and white, and three whole, fat eels. The fishmonger stuffs it all into a portable cooler bag with THE INLET MARKET and the image of a grinning blue lobster emblazoned on each side.

Kylo thinks he can probably slip in, his lateness unnoticed, but of course he’s wrong. Hux accosts him as he attempts to reach his office balancing cooler, coffee, and his usual bag. 

“Shopping on company time?” Hux’s voice is as slimy as those eels looked, and Kylo clenches a fist around the bag handle. “Or just had a craving for sushi?”

“Sushi. Yes, exactly. You’re so astute. Amazing that you’re still waiting on that promotion to Head of Research.” 

Kylo’s heart is only partially invested the task of attempting to belittle his colleague as he turns into his office. Hopefully, Hux has the good sense to fuck off and realize he’s not welcome past the threshold.

Of course, he doesn’t. His eyes are narrowed when Kylo glares at him. Lips pursing, barely concealing his sneery smile, Hux says, “I’ve heard you’ve requested an undue amount of time with the Niima Siren. Losing your touch?” He lifts a pale eyebrow and settles his gaze on the insulated bag. “Or, perhaps she’s the one with the taste for that much raw fish. Treating her now, are you?”

“That’s my business. You’ll get your crack at her soon enough.” Kylo refuses to look at him. His face is beginning to burn, as is his temper. “For now, piss off. I’ve had a long night.”

“I’m sure you did. Careful, Ren, that your personal interests not interfere with _protocol_.” 

Apparently thinking he’s gotten a good one in on Kylo, Hux turns smoothly and disappears down the corridor, to wherever it is he likes to perform his creepy little studies. Kylo feels the knots in his stomach loosen, but not enough. He already knows they won’t dissipate completely until that evening, when he returns to the tank and her. For now, he needs to get through the rest of the day. He grabs the bag of fish and stalks off to the kitchens, hoping he isn’t too late to secure his purchases a place in the fridge and cringing when he thinks of how much he just spent on them. 

The hours drag, but he slogs through them. The Readings he does are uninteresting, the meetings even less so. There’s debate about trying to bring in a kelpie, and some controversy over international laws associated with it. When the time comes to have dinner and then ready himself to see her, he finds he can hardly remember what he did that day at all, beyond guzzling unheard of quantities of coffee. Clarity only begins to seem feasible when he walks past that foot-thick span of glass, enters the lift, and presses the button to take him up.

Like last night, Rey is waiting on the platform, but this time she’s much closer to where he exits the lift, indolently waving the fluked end of her tail through the air. It’s much paler than the rest of her scales, almost creamy, more like her skin. Each lobe consists of spines not unlike the ones along her back, joined by translucent webbing, like twin fans. He knows they are nowhere near as delicate as they appear.

She’s lying on her back, dimly glowing filaments splayed around her, staring at the ceiling. Reflexively, he looks up. There’s nothing interesting up there, of course, just black vaulting, a few metal beams. He knows she notices him here—there’s no way she can’t—but she looks almost surprised when she turns her head to look at him. Kylo prods at her thoughts with his own, taking a risk. Rey doesn’t prod back. She just lets him feel her listlessness, resignation, mild annoyance, ebbing sadness. For a moment they all feel like his own, until he closes them off.

“What are you doing?” he finally asks when it becomes clear she isn’t going to be the first to engage.

“Waiting.” 

She’s looking at the ceiling again, but then she sits up and seems almost to shake herself off. Her thin shoulders sag and she lets her head roll forward, then tenses her whole body and stretches her arms up high over her head to let out a massive yawn. He knows Rey is strong, but now he sees the way all her muscles flex and roll beneath her skin, which seems to stretch just a bit too much somehow as her ribcage expands and relaxes. He sees how wide her mouth opens with that yawn, and all her teeth. 

Despite himself, Kylo also sees her, in his mind’s eye, the way she was in his dream. How deep she drew him into herself. He is tempted to walk up to her and try to look down her throat to see how far it goes.

Bad idea. Instead, he lifts the hand he’s holding the Inlet Market bag in. “I brought you fresh meat. Fish.”

She lights up. Her filaments twitch to activity, the bioluminescent pinpoints on each brighten and turn an ebullient fuchsia, her skin seems to get brighter. He notices there are little flecks of blue light along her arms and collarbone, and again he thinks of jewelry. Sapphires, moonstones, lapis lazuli. The freckles on her face are just the same—captivating. Her wide sharp-toothed smile is achingly pretty to behold. 

He busies himself with the bag as she draws closer. 

“You did!” she marvels, raising herself up to look inside. “I smell it. I smell it, it smells perfect. Let me have it!”

He’s alarmed by how close she is. It occurs to him, in a sick jolt, that he has performed exactly none of his routine preparations. No harness, no carabiners, no protective coveralls or gloves, never mind the idea of the mask at all, of course he forgot that. All he has is the slacks and shirt he put on that morning, and his tablet, and his bag of fish.

“Eels! You’ve brought eels. I knew you would,” she continues, verging on rapturous. “My favorite.”

She almost purrs the last two words, and some twisted part of his mind insists, or maybe hopes, _She means you_.

Her arms are in the bag, clawing, tearing at butcher’s paper, tossing little bits of twine away, and she draws back a few moments later with the salmon and one of the eels clutched to her chest. She settles on the floor, tail flexing almost spasmodically, and with no further ceremony, swallows the eel whole. Just puts it to her lips, head first, and gulps it down. She doesn’t even chew. Kylo can actually see the way her throat distends as she swallows it, and then it’s gone, like it was never there at all.

It shouldn’t be arousing. It’s disgusting, in fact, in a lot of ways. But his lower regions seem to disagree, and he closes his eyes and commands his body with get a grip. When he opens them, she’s started on the salmon. Her approach is blessedly less pornographic. She takes great enjoyment in pulling it apart. It tears delicately along each thin white thread of fat, like candy floss unspooling, and she nibbles the chunks of rich pink meat contentedly. 

“Thank you,” she says. He doesn’t know why it surprises him to be thanked by her. Probably because he’s one of her captors, and she has no reason to like him. That thought hurts. It shouldn’t. “I was so hungry, and these are some of my favorites. All of it. Not just the eels.”

“I know.” Kylo didn’t realize it, but he does now. He _did_ know her favorites, that morning at that market. It wasn’t conscious at all, but he knew, without ever being told.

“I thought so.” Rey looks at him almost proudly. “I’m going to eat it all.”

“Good.” 

She better. It was expensive, and he’s not about to dig in. 

“What about you? Do you like them, Ben?”

He flinches to hear her address him like that. “No. I don’t like seafood.”

He thinks of that juvenile school cafeteria joke— _Do you like see-food?_ —and expects her to open her mouth in the next instant and show him the shredded fish flesh inside, stick her tongue out, giggle wickedly.

She doesn't. She puts the salmon she hasn’t eaten yet down and returns to the bag, which he has since let rest on the floor beside her. As she roots around for the still-wrapped swordfish, her brows knit together. 

“Not the fish. These are mine, and I’m not sharing. The dreams, I mean. Do you like them?”

His mouth drops open and he closes it with a click of teeth. “What?”

“The dreams. Of us.”

He mouths wordlessly, and she begins picking the twine off the packet, sounding only marginally surprised by his reaction as she says, “I like them. So much. Human legs are very interesting, aren't they? And what's between them.” She eyes him, and he swears there's a lascivious glimmer in her gaze that heats his whole body. “I wouldn't mind at all having my own.”

“You’ve seen what I’ve . . . dreamed? The last two nights?” 

It’s pointless to ask. She clearly has. But he doesn’t know how else to respond. He should feel embarrassed or something, but he doesn’t. He’s almost relieved. Rey nods and pokes at the swordfish, lifts the hunk of meat to her mouth and takes a bite. Ivory and mottled pink, it squelches and gives. 

“Of course I have. Isn’t it what you want? A companion? I thought you did. You’re very alone. I felt it. I saw it. When we fused . . .”

“When we what?”

No, he remembers what that is. She told him, last night when he interviewed her. 

During his first session with her, as he started to Read her, she thought he was doing something else, _inviting_ something else, and she responded in kind. She . . . fused, to him. Or him to her. He can’t quite grasp the concept as she explained it. She held on to whatever link he formed between them, ordinarily meant to last only as long as he allows it, and she solidified it. Now their minds, maybe their very beings, are bound each to the other. To what end, he doesn’t understand.

He’d forgotten. How had he forgotten? 

Kylo shakes his head, crouches down on the platform, sits. “Yes. I like them. I . . . I want it. Them. The dreams.” 

Because that’s the only place this _works_. He shouldn’t want it at all. He shouldn’t want her at all. It hits him like a wave, how much he does.

She seems suddenly more interested in him than in her meal, and her speech is so casually conversational he can’t help letting her chatter on. 

“Those things you do, with your tongue. They’re very nice. You have a wonderful mouth. Your hands, too. Your whole body . . . very agreeable.” Rey runs her nails along the edge of her teeth, scraping some of her food out from beneath them. She slides closer. “Your heart is beating so fast.”

God, it is. His blood is pounding in his ears, and he feels almost dizzy. “It’s nothing.”

This is the strangest flirtation he has ever been subjected to. And by far the most inappropriate, in so many ways.

 _Is_ she flirting with him? 

Ten or so filaments have found their way to his forearm, sneaking beneath the long sleeves of his shirt, coiling around like vines and waking a parade of goose bumps on his skin. The lights of them glow dimly through the dark cotton, fuchsia and lavender. Her hand is on his knee. It’s sliding up his thigh. How did she get so close?

“Stop,” he blurts. 

She does. She sinks back and returns to her meal, untroubled. 

He stands and paces away, eyes scanning the corners of the ceiling, the space over the lift doors, and the surface of the water. “There are cameras.” As if that’s the only reason. It might be. “We shouldn’t . . . you can’t do that. That isn’t why I’m here.”

“Why are you here, Ben?”

He hates the ways she always says his name. At the fore of his mind he hates it, and the feeling immediately disperses. It’s only because she knows him. She could know more.

“To do my job. To talk.”

“I like talking to you,” she says. “Yes, we can do that. We’re very alike, you know?”

He’s so grateful he almost crumples to the floor. “I think you’re right.”


	6. .consummation.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kylo dreams again. And again.

He takes so long to fall asleep, he fears he won’t see her when he does. But he can’t stop thinking of how he spent hours there, again, well past regulation, talking to her. The things he told her, about himself. Everything.

Once he started he couldn’t stop. Everything she already knew, and the things she didn’t. How he’s had this power since he was too small to remember. When he was still resigned to call himself Ben. 

It was always so strong, nearly out of control. Ben heard what everyone thought, felt what they felt, saw their memories and desires and dreams and fears. His parents, his friends, his teachers, even his pets. It was always too much, too overwhelming. No one knew how to help him harness it. The only thing that helped was bursts of hot, uncontrolled anger and blasts of destructive psionic energy, when the pressure of _everyone_ inside him became too much and boiled over in tantrums and fights and destruction of property. 

Soon enough it was the Institute, and Ben didn’t have parents, or friends, or teachers anymore, and all of that was his fault. He left behind what he could and pushed away whatever remained. And then there was only Administrator Snoke. Empaths are rare enough in the world; true telepathic empaths even more so. He saw Ben’s curse and taught him to hone it into a gift. He did that. So Ben didn’t matter anymore, and Kylo Ren did. Kylo Ren does good work. 

The First Order does good work. Monsters can’t just be left to roam free. They’re agents of chaos and destruction. Better to find them, keep them, study them and eliminate the threat they pose. 

Since he left the facility tonight, thoughts that he’s doing something wrong are hounding him. Thoughts of her, consuming him.

He drifts off.

He takes the lift. The single short tone that sounds when he arrives on the viewing platform rings in his head as he steps out. Rey is on the platform, standing on two legs. She’s wearing a slate-colored dress, airy, the hem brushing her knees. She isn’t wearing shoes. There’s a strand of blue stones around her neck, rough cut and unpolished. Her hair ruffles in a nonexistent breeze. 

He stops in front of her. She looks up into his face and smiles with those perfect pearly teeth. 

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Waiting.”

She practically lunges for him, but he’s ready and catches her, arms winding around her as she crushes herself to his chest. Her mouth is so greedy at his, so hungry, and his is no different. He’s hungry too. She knows it. There’s the feeling again that her touch is everywhere at once as she quickly works the buttons of his shirt open and peels it back over his shoulders. It lands crumpled on the floor, black getting blacker as it soaks in a stray puddle.

Her hands are at his zipper, her nails scrape against the metal teeth, and he’s already so sensitive she may as well be touching him directly for all the little vibrations it sends through him. He’s been pawing her dress while he sucks at her throat; his hands slide up her thighs to her hips. She’s not wearing any underwear. Why would she be? 

Kylo shoves a hand between her legs, where she’s pliant and slick, parts her with his fingers and exhales hot against her skin. They’re both naked within a minute, on the floor. It should be uncomfortable—cold and hard, wet and slippery. And it is all those things; but not uncomfortable. It’s as welcoming and familiar as his bed. She is welcoming and familiar.

He has her pinned beneath him. It’s hard to get a grasp on her, and at first she seems to elude him, like it’s all been a game. But he gets her, fingers tripping down her sides and digging at her hips, finding purchase at last even as his knees slide a little along the floor. He settles behind her, over her. Her heat and presence are excruciating.

“You still want this?”

“Yes.”

He’s not sure which of them asks and which of them answers. Maybe both, by turns, or neither. It seems as likely that they both just know. 

He steadies her and sears her spine with kisses. Rey pushes back into him, impatient and squirming for him to fill her, and his cock slips between her legs to rock against her folds. It drives her wild—he feels every secret flicker of her responses, magnified by and magnifying his own, and he barely knows who or what he is beyond the idea that he needs to be with her. Inside her. Joined to her physically, at last, the way their minds are joined.

The blue stones around her neck clack into each other and scrape the floor as she dips forward, back sloped. His skin slaps against hers against the tiles, a slow rhythm for only a short time before he can’t help his frantic movements. She bucks back into him, whimpering, sighing and moaning and _yesyesyesYES, she feels so good, so good_ , one arm braced beneath her, the other reaching to touch herself when he flattens his chest against her back and tries to slow down, to make this last, to— 

It’s as much a shock that when he comes, it’s with her, as it is that he does so and remains in the dream at all. Precedent suggests he should be robbed of that moment, wake up derailed and undone, made to finish alone what his mind started. But this time they finish together, and when he’s spent and she’s still gasping they collapse on the floor, rimed with sweat and water and everything else. Rey climbs on top of him and stretches out to settle over him like a shroud, toes tickling his ankles.

Kylo kisses her forehead and strokes her hair, maps the blades of her shoulders, the faint notches of her spine, and on the third kiss she captures his lips with hers and doesn’t let go until she’s ready to speak. 

“Your heart is beating so fast.”

He laughs and traces her lower lip with the pad of his thumb. “Of course it is, after that. So is yours.”

“Ah!” Her expression brightens. “He smiles.”

“Sometimes.”

Her eyes are distant, sunlight on dark, green water, and her voice quiet. “I’ve missed this.”

He isn't sure what she means by that. He is about to ask, but Rey takes his thumb into her mouth, sucks and licks at it, bites teasingly. He forgets what he was going to ask. He slides his hands over the soft curve of her butt, massages the back of her thighs, delighting in the simplicity of her smooth lovely limbs as much as she does. She sighs and settles and sleeps, still draped over him and clinging, like he’s hers. He doesn't mind, and he sleeps too. Slips into another, deeper dream. 

_A man wanders a stretch of desert island. He’s so thirsty, and hungry. He’s a criminal. A deserter. He and a fellow soldier stole a plane and left the war behind. Determined to run forever if need be. No more fighting. No more killing. No more death._

_They crashed._

_His friend is dead._

_He wanders, lost. And then found. A lady, on a rock, combing her shining dark hair. Oh, a devil! A_ monster! _But no. She's lovely, strong, clever, beautiful. A bit frightening still—that serpentine fish’s tail, those spines, those pinpoint-lighted whips. Those teeth._

_But she brings him food, and gifts from the deep. She helps him find shelter. She helps him stay alive. She looks at him the way no one ever has. She talks to him and keeps him from being lonely. Rey. His Rey._ L’étoile de la mer. _She is with him, always, and he no longer feels the need for rescue. He has what he needs, who he needs, he only needs her._

_She comes to him one night, drawn by his campfire. He is so sweet, so loyal, so kind. He gives her things, gifts he finds along the beach. Shells and stones, pretty glass bottles and little tender crustaceans._

_He will last a while, when she takes him. He will not be so quickly used up. Her light flashes blue when he wakes._

_He didn't last. He was so quickly used up._ C'est la fin, _as he would have said._

_She misses him. She liked him so much. She is a little sorry, sometimes, but she knows what she is. This is what she does, for she is not human and her ways are not their ways._

_And it has been so long. A hundred years at least. She has been so—_

Kylo wakes to the sun in his eyes. He feels good. So good. He rolls over in bed and squints at the clock. He will be late again if he stops at the fish market, but that’s okay. The only work that matters happens by night.


	7. .plans.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kylo knows what he needs to do, and so does Rey.

Over the next three days, Kylo brings her things, more than just the fish. Puzzles, and books, and music, drawing supplies, model kits, videos, because last time she said she is bored and hates how every day here is the same. She wants to explore shipwrecks and find pieces of the past, broken and discarded, and build things out of them. It’s amazing, the things she thinks up and creates from nothing. He uses his breaks to go to shops, to bring things from his apartment.

He stops going home at the end of the nights he spends in the aquarium with her. He just goes back to his office and sinks onto the sofa by the window, thinking of how he’d rather be in there, with Rey watching, with her nearby, until he falls asleep. He still dreams with her, though, each one better than the last. When he wakes up he feels good. To be known and understood, rather than always knowing, is unexpectedly marvelous. He isn't sure how he went so long without such a phenomenon. It becomes easier to get through the days to reach the nights.

He knows the cameras capture it all—the things he brings her, the hours he spends talking with her, the times he just sits and tunes in to the current of connection between them. He doesn’t really care. He has already reported how unique she is. Exceptional. Such a creature requires special handling, deviations from protocol. 

But he was approved for a week, and now there is only one day left. He has always tried not to think too much about what becomes of the monsters after he is done with them. All useful information gleaned, they’re given over the the rest of the research department to act on his findings. He tells himself that isn’t on him.

To think that will happen to Rey though, in only a day or two . . . it makes him feel sick, in his stomach and in his head. His lungs actually hurt and his heart shudders. It can’t go that way. It will go that way, unless he does something.

“I’m taking you out of here,” he tells her when he arrives, crouching at the edge of the platform. 

Rey has spent the day making things: four model cars, a zoo’s worth of origami animals, a half-completed scrimshaw etching on a piece of marrow bone she sucked clean yesterday, and a huge watercolor painting of what he knows is her home, a rotted, centuries-old wreck of a warship called the _HMS Hellhound_. She’s captured the details with such vivid precision he can almost feel the place around him, hear the creaking beams, see the schools of colorful fish. 

Just now, she’s floating reclined in the middle of the tank, listening to Kate Bush ( _of fucking_ course _a mermaid took an instant liking to Kate Bush_ ) and watching YouTube videos on the tablet he left with her, which she has propped on her stomach. When she hears him speak she immediately swims for the platform, keeping the tablet carefully aloft, and alights to sit beside him. He catches a glimpse of what she’s watching—motocross races. He’d find it funny at any other time, but they don’t have much of that.

“Did you hear me? I’m getting you out.” He tries not to sound frantic, but he isn’t sure he succeeds. “Do you want that? To go back to the ocean. Home.”

She pauses her video and the music and sets the tablet down, then looks at him with calm solemnity. “Yes. I was going to ask if you would.”

“It isn’t safe for you here. Not anymore.” It never was. “Rey, listen—” 

“I know what’s coming if you don’t. Something very bad. You think about it all the time, lately.”

“Right.” Well, her immediate understanding, her utter knowing, is not surprising. It’s encouraging. “The cameras will record it all, if I just remove you and try to walk out into the night, but—”

“You have no intention of coming back.” Her hand brushes his. “Right?”

He doesn’t really know. He supposes he couldn’t, after that. He’d have to run. That’s fine. The ridiculous notion that he could lead a seafaring life—get a boat, set out, sail the world with her—flashes in his mind, and he shakes it off. He hates the sea. He couldn’t do that. 

But he does know what he has to do, and he has to do it tonight. 

“I won’t be coming back, no,” he agrees. 

He feels Rey’s emotions stirring a storm and lets himself reach out enough to catch an echo of her thoughts, so he is not surprised when she leans in to kiss him. He’s glad she hasn’t eaten what he’s brought her yet. As attractive as she is to him ( _yes, even like this, always like this_ ), Kylo isn’t sure he wants to taste raw fish and the iron tang of blood when her tongue touches his and he deepens the kiss in return. 

His tongue brushes her needle teeth, and his hand, when it travels down from her shoulder, meets hard, sleek scales at her hip. He remembers this isn’t one of the dreams. He keeps kissing her anyway. Her lips, her chin, her neck, the little lights at her collarbone that spark against his tongue, her breast, drawing his lips around her nipple and sighing as she winds her hands in his hair and her filaments press soft touches to his face and creep down his collar and up his sleeves and he feels lit up. 

Maybe it is like the dreams. Maybe the cameras don’t matter now, either.

“Hmm, Ben . . .” 

When she says it this time it just sounds good and right. He doesn’t mind at all. He kisses her shoulder and lets his cheek rest there to face her. 

“What?”

“I’m hungry.”

“Right. Yeah.” 

They have a few hours before he can start to put his plan in motion. She has a plan too. Already had one, evidently, before he even arrived tonight. He found snatches of it in her head, swimming around with thoughts of home and hunger, but he didn’t look too deeply. His plan is sound, and she’s agreed to it.

Kylo lets go of her as she does the same, though she does kiss him once more before he rises to grab the bag. He knows she can smell everything inside and identify it without a second thought, but he asks anyway, almost smiling because she likes it when he does, “Guess what’s inside?”

Rey grins, and she only has eyes for him. “My favorite.”


	8. .consumed.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which an escape is made, and desires are fulfilled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you made it this far and like music, here is a playlist of songs and instrumentals that were pretty appropriate when writing this. [Have a listen](https://open.spotify.com/user/christa.cordero/playlist/0zqgu9q2gtcMcRrMKO2tlJ?si=nESoqJIKRcuaD5-AOWOt3w) on Spotify.
> 
> Thanks again for reading!

Kylo’s hands clutch the steering wheel of the van as he pulls off the freeway to take the exit toward the nearest beach. They’re on an island, so really any way would do it eventually, but the Order facility is like the hub of a particularly tricky wheel—centered, more or less, and only accessible by certain roads and surrounded otherwise by thick, untamed evergreen forest. Ordinarily, there are layers of security checkpoints to pass when leaving the compound. None of those were any more of a problem tonight than the late-working paperpusher they crossed paths with on their way out of the facility.

It’s been many years since Kylo used his ability to control others in such a capacity. To his own ends. But he hasn’t lost his touch, and it feels good to use his power again, _truly_ use it and be in control of its scope. None of the guards gave him so much as a second glance as he pulled by each station in a van painted with the First Order logo, no authorization codes, no papers, no explanation for the fact that Rey is curled in the back, wrapped in a brine-soaked blanket, sleeping to conserve her energy.

And now they’re out. He’s been driving nearly three hours. The road is so smooth, the van so well-tuned, that the silence and dark of the wild island at night is complete. There are no clouds, and the stars are out though the moon is not. They remind him of Rey’s lights, though such a comparison seems a disservice to her. Her lights are more precious than gemstones or stars or any of the other things he’s tried to liken them to. 

_Idiot. What are you doing? What do you think is going to happen? Take her back right now, no one will know, you can erase the recordings, no one will know, no one will know, no one will—_

“No,” he insists aloud to himself. This is the right thing to do. He is doing something good. For her.

The van hits a bump in the road and Rey’s snores in the back cease. He hears her groan and yawn, and a dull thud that must be her tail hitting the side of the van as she stretches. Her head appears by his shoulder, and though his eyes are on the road, he feels hers on him.

“Are we nearly there?” she asks. She sounds so eager. There’s such a thrum of longing in the air around her it almost breaks his heart. He _is_ a little heartbroken, he realizes. This is it for them.

_For them? There isn’t a ‘them’. She’s not human. This is some twisted, ugly exercise in lust and loneliness and nothing more. She doesn’t love him. She can’t. What is happening to him?_

“Yes, soon.” Kylo looks at the dashboard clock, glances at the nav system on his iPhone mounted on the dash. “Another hour. Maybe a little more than that.”

“Hmm.” 

Her chin bumps his shoulder by accident, but then she lets it rest there. She smells like chocolate. He left her some cake in the back, and some other things to eat that are probably more suitable. But she went for the cake. He doesn’t think he wants to eat chocolate cake, or anything, ever again. Wherever he’s going after this. 

“Can we listen to music? This vehicle has a radio, right?” She doesn’t wait for him to answer and instead reaches further forward to work the touchscreen monitor. He figures she knows what to do because she’s used the tablet. Or, he reasons, it may be because she absorbed the knowledge from him a week ago. 

The FM is tuned to a classical station; he recognizes the melody as Saint-Saëns but can’t remember the title of the piece. The violins are jaunty and shrill by turns, the xylophone arresting. Good, it will keep him awake. He’s been fighting a feeling of drowsiness for the last half hour, but it’s not like he can ask Rey to take over driving a while. She likes the music too, settles into the back again and is silent the rest of the ride, except for when she hums along. It’s a pretty sound, low and melodic, and she is happy, and he taps into that feeling and makes it his own.

They reach the beach with a quarter tank of gas. It’s almost four in the morning. Kylo pulls the van off the road and drives it over the gravel and sand until they reach an abandoned shed. He cuts the ignition and stares out through the windshield for a minute. Beaches have always unsettled him. They’re like the end of the world, and the idea of the ocean is as terrifying as that of outer space. All that endless, empty darkness. No air. Cold. Horrors.

But it’s where Rey came from, and she needs to go back. And at night, when he can hardly see where the sea ends and the sky begins, it’s a little beautiful. He gets out and walks around to open the back of the van. It’s gotten quite cold out. She’s awake and doesn’t seem to have eaten anything else, which he finds strange at first, until he picks up her anticipation. A lot of anticipation. It’s no wonder, of course—she’s ready to go home. He wouldn’t want to eat, either, if it were him.

“We’re here,” he tells her needlessly.

“Yes we are.” 

She doesn’t need any help out. He’s seen her out of the water enough times that the novelty of it has worn off, but it’s still fascinating to watch the way she moves over dry land. She sort of undulates her tail, pushes off from the end, and she barely has to use her arms at all. So she throws the blanket off and slides out of the van, over the gravel and stones toward the water, and he walks in her wake to watch the shining curves of her movements.

The water hisses against the sand as she lingers where the waves lap and looks to him expectantly. Kylo isn’t sure what to do or say. Soon it will be just him. He thinks he might sleep in the van tonight, where it’s parked. He wonders if he’ll ever see her again when he sleeps. The thought that he won’t— _he won’t_ —makes him shiver and feel profoundly alone, and useless, and incomplete. Without her, what else matters?

He watches her and stretches out with his mind, into hers, one last time, maybe just to pass some fraction of what she means to him along directly, in a way no words can ever adequately express. It isn’t necessary, because he’s certain she already knows, but he does it anyway. He feels her latch into it again the way she did that first day, as if with teeth and steel jaws. The yearning she returns is so overpowering that his legs buckle and he falls to his knees, slumping in the surf.

Rey is in front of him, taking his face in her hands. He looks up. She’s shining so bright, like she’s soaked up the starlight and improved it. Her lights, all thirty-six, are vibrant and alive, branching around them both, touching his face and neck and hands and everywhere else. That extra one is back. The one he swore he saw only once when he first tried to read her mind and then never again, until now—a thicker rod growing from the base of her neck, arching prettily up and over her head, the single bright blue light at its tip glowing right in his face.

Kylo doesn’t want to move, not when he can look at that light, her face cast beautifully in its glow, her freckles twinkling. She smiles so wide, wider than ever, her face almost splitting with it. She kisses his forehead, smoothing his windblown hair back, and then his lips, so tenderly. He sighs and shivers. He almost wants to cry. He is crying, only a little, just a few tears leaking from his eyes.

“Come with me, Ben,” she whispers against his cheek. She catches a tear on the tip of her tongue as it tracks down toward his chin. He hears the faint hum of pleasure in the back of her throat as her palm settles hot on his chest. “It isn't too late. You can stay with me.”

He can. He doesn’t understand how he can, but he can. Of course he can. As long as he turns to that light and follows, he can do anything. If he lets her take it with her, into the deep, and leave him here behind . . . he doesn’t know what would happen and he doesn’t want to find out. He’d probably just stay here in the sand, ocean soaking into him, and wait. And wait. And wait.

She’s moving away from him, already halfway into the water. From here she looks human. She moves with such elegance, with her lights skirting around her, and the steady blue pulse above her head brighter than ever, calling. He could hardly resist it if he wanted to. But why would he want to resist it?

Kylo stands up. He doesn’t remember taking off all of his clothing, or even when he did it. They’re nowhere in sight, so maybe he shucked them off as he followed her down the beach. Maybe it was in the van. Maybe he left them all at the facility. That’s fine; he isn’t going to need them.

She’s gone further out. He can’t see her anymore, just a bead of blue above the waves, bobbing. He follows its pull. She always knew he would. He was afraid the water would be cold, but it’s not, and he doesn’t think he’d care either way. It doesn’t really feel like anything at all. He doesn’t feel like anything at all either, the deeper in he goes. 

Thoughts that he’s doing something wrong are no longer hounding him. If he is, if he has, it has all been forgiven, he’s sure now. Kylo is sure of that and so many other things that all seem to center on her. Her taste. Her hands. Her smell. The feeling of having her, like peace. His thoughts of her, still consuming him.

When he reaches Rey where she’s been waiting, always for him, he feels everything. How much she wants him. She’s always wanted him, from the very start. Just like this. 

Her head breaks the surface, and she wraps her arms around him to hold him so tight he thinks he might shatter. He would shatter for her, if she asked. He holds her as she pulls him under. 

Everything dims around him but the light. 

And the heat of her lips on his skin. 

And the faint scrape of something sharp at his neck. 

Her favorite.


End file.
